Barack Obama Will Win in 2012, the Republicans Have Burned Themselves Out

Ever since the GOP primaries began, I had a terrible feeling that, somehow, Republicans were going to do and say things to screw up their chances in the 2012 election.

I hoped that Romney would be able to put away his competitors early, thereby minimizing the number of sound bites available to the Obama campaign. But alas, it has not worked out that way. Romney will likely get the GOP nomination, but Priorities USA, Obama’s Super PAC will have more than enough ammunition to destroy Romney this Fall.

The problem, as we all know, is that Republicans are trying to find “the most conservative candidate,” as if that’s the mystical elixir for victory this year. Romney has consistently been at the forefront of the Republican slate, but the right wing arm of the party does not believe he is conservative enough, what ever that means. Keep in mind, moving to the middle when the primaries are ended is what most experts say you must do to win the presidency. During the primaries, the voters and the caucuses explored each alternative to Romney, effectively stretching out the competition and providing all sorts of fodder for the opposition.

My favorite story is about Romney’s dog. [Romney is] “the guy who once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car,” to quote Gail Collins, New York Times columnist in her op-ed piece on Thursday. How many times have you read this comment since the primaries began? What is the relevance of this story to Romney’s ability to be president? It really does not matter, does it? Making Romney seem outlandish is the objective, a tactic that liberals used regularly during the George W. Bush administration.

Romney’s weaknesses are being exposed daily by his Republican competitors, who are, seemingly, doing everything possible to ensure an Obama victory in the fall. They say Romney is a flip-flopper (as if he is the first politician to change his mind); he wanted the auto industry to go bust; he invented Obamacare; he fired thousands of workers while at Bain; he pays less taxes than secretaries (thank you Warren Buffett for confusing the electorate to no end on this issue); he balanced the budget in Massachusetts because he was required to do so by law, not because he wanted to; and so on. We are going to see all this stuff time and again when Democrat super PACs take over the Romney character assassination from Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC.

I think Obama has done a very poor job as president from almost every perspective. He has not been an effective leader domestically or globally; he has misled America; he broke campaign promises; he is the partisan-in chief; he is the leader of class warfare in this country; he has not restored America’s reputation worldwide; he enacted a terrible health care law; he has caused the U.S. to dramatically increase its national debt; and so much more.

Many Americans know all this and would be willing to vote for an alternative in 2012. But, the GOP primary proceedings had Republicans destroying the reputations of other Republicans. An opportunity to unseat Obama has probably been lost; the loud-mouthed GOP conservatives are responsible for this phenomenon. And so, we will likely have to live through another four years of Democratic governance.